At Long Last - A Memorial Bench for the Celtic Lassie - UPDATE #2: Match Met But Still Not Finished

Scottish Gaelic:   Dh'aithnichinn air do sheirc do thabhartas.

English:  “I would know your gift by your graciousness.”

                                                                                   Otteray Scribe

Meditation garden at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Elizabethton, TN Where Brandi’s Memorial Bench will be placed.  Update: an anonymous donor has just offered a $200 matching fund challenge.

We can’t let a match go unmatched. So this is a great time to jump in and help Otteray Scribe finally fund this memorial bench to his beloved daugher Brandi Nicole Stanley.  THE MATCH HAS BEEN MET. THANKS FOR GETTING US OFF TO A GREAT START.

Update #2: The total cost of the memorial bench is $1500.

There are some other costs associated with the memorial service, including a marker for Brandi’s ashes and a piper. The $1500 is needed today so that the engraver can have the bench ready for the service scheduled for May 20th.

We are waiting for possible tally from Otteray Scribe, but we have NOT met the full needs as of 2:30 pm Eastern this afternoon. 

Update #3: Still $600 from our Goal.

At 4:20 Eastern we are still $600 short of the needed funds. Please donate if you can. Sharing on social media, Twitter, Facebook, and rec and commenting in this diary gets the word out and is also a huge help. Thanks, everyone.

Contributions can be made to: paypal.me/brandismemorial

Checks or money orders should be made out to “Brandi Memorial” and sent to:

Northeast Community Credit Union 980 Jason Witten Way Elizabethton, TN  37643

Main office phone: 423-547-1200 Brandy Arnett, New Accounts Representative

A Treasured Kossack Scribe walks a bittersweet last mile. 

Yes, you know who I mean. Our own beloved Otteray Scribe, who has made many wonderful contributions to our Kossack community here. Music. Poetry. Odes to his Scots heritage. Keen political insights. Photo-journals, and videos of breathtaking aerial views of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee (indigenous People of the region, the Cherokee, called the place “Otteray.”). Fascinating historical recountings. Wry, incisive humor, delivered with a side of warm Southern molasses. Our venerable Scribe of The Otteray.

We first met OS a decade ago, when he came to us that fateful anniversary in 2008, the first year after he had buried his youngest son, Tim, with military honors in a National Cemetery. His memorial to his fallen son's memory was our first introduction to his endearing, intimate, poignant eloquence on family, love and grief. In Memorium: Timothy Stanley (died 2007)

Little did OS know, nor did we, of the nearly unendurable losses and tragedies that Life would hurl into his pathway, like ruthless lightning bolts from a forsaking heaven, in the ensuing decade after that post. More than once the story of Job in the Old Testament Bible has come to mind, as we at DK have helplessly stood witness to these relentless tragic losses befalling our dear Otteray Scribe.

In his words, written in 2016 for the obituary of his eldest daughter, "Mary Beth was preceded in death by her son, Reed, who died of cancer in 2011 at age 17. Also preceding her in death was her brother, Timothy Stanley, and her sister, Brandi Nicole Stanley. Her mother, Letha Stanley, passed away in 2011."

This is truly an extraordinary fate to befall one loving husband and father.

With each harrowing loss, Otteray Scribe shared not only his profound grief, but wisdom and grace, in a series of personal diaries that touched the entire DKOS community. In true Gaelic spirit, Otteray Scribe’s loving tributes to each member of his family celebrated a life with all its joys, struggles, accomplishments, friendships, ambitions, enthusiasms, hobbies, passions. We came to know and admire these funny, loving, spirited, strong-willed, talented individuals. The Stanley clan. 

Reed, who wanted to be a chef. And also wanted to be eighteen years old.

I so wanted to be eighteen

Reed’s Memorial Bench (1994-2011)

Letha Ryan Stanley, his partner of 55 years. Together they raised a fantastic family. After being diagnosed with a heart condition, she was distraught about having to give up her career as an oncology nurse. Then Letha discovered an abandoned toddler in the cancer ward —  a baby expected to live less than two years. OS and Letha adopted her and Letha nursed Brandi back to health.

Greatest Love Story: Letha Stanley (1936-2011)

Two Years Ago - No Matter How Dark it Gets I Will Find You 

Letha looks on as Mary Beth holds Brandi in the hospital ward

The toddler survived the cancer after many surgeries and rounds of chemo. She was named Brandi but called the Celtic Lassie. She led an active and happy life surrounded by a loving family. They packed a lot into her teen years. She rode like her older sister. She took flying lessons. Brandi embraced her Scottish heritage, becoming a piper and relishing highland games and gathering of the clans. Defying all expectations, she eventually graduated from college and trained to be a paramedic. 

But the monster (cancer) came back. She developed trouble walking. Then, she fell and broke a hip. The broken hip revealed a huge pelvic mass. After a brave struggle, she succumbed in 2015. She was only 27 years old.

In Memorium: Celtic Lassie (1988-2015)  

Celtic Lassie meets her new dad at the hospital.

Brandi atop Grandfather Mountain in Otteray Scribe’s beloved Blue Ridge Mountains.

Mary Beth. An athlete. An equestrian. A swimmer. After losing son Reed, she suffered seven more years through her own battle with cancer, much of it wheel-chair bound.

In Memorium: Mary Beth Stanley (1968-2016)        

Obituary: http://www.mtnempirecbs.com

The Memorial Bench: Not planting them for me, but for generations that will follow:

So much loss has taken its toll emotionally, but also financially. Last week, Otteray Scribe posted a comment in the DKos-Ashville group. He talked about getting around to planting some trees that “our Celtic Lassie” had picked out. Red maple, and maybe a hickory tree. “It is about time,” wrote OS. He continued:

Plans for later this spring will be to place a bench for our Lassie in the Meditation garden at St. Thomas. She loved that little garden, and some of the members who have green thumbs have revived it.  Hope to have it ordered and engraved soon (not cheap) and ready for dedication by Memorial Day.  Would you believe this May 25 will be three years?  She would have been 30 years old next October.  I am struggling with what to have put on the bench. Engraving is free and comes with the bench price.

Some folks wanted to help. Many here cherished their memories of Celtic Lassie. A plan was hatched to get OS to agree to accept our help to honor Brandi. You can read the ensuing conversation generated by OS’ comment here: comment thread

It has been three long years since Brandi’s passing.  The plan is to have the inscription prepared and the bench installed at the church in time for Brandi's 3rd-year passing-anniversary on May 25th. The memorial is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, May 20th at Saint Thomas Episcopal Church. It would be a huge relief to a still grieving father to have this final gift for his daughter completed. 

Sitting on the Lassie’s bench, in a peaceful setting among sweet flowers and shady trees, will be not only be a lasting memorial to Brandi. This will be a place of refuge and comfort for all who take respite from a busy world there. As sockpuppet so eloquently remarked, That lovely stone memorial bench will be like a hug from Celtic Lassie for whoever stops by to pause a while upon it. That will be part of Brandi’s rich legacy. 

We, the kind and caring DKOS community, can also be part of that legacy. Let’s help a loving father take his beloved daughter’s hand one final time and walk with her to this garden bench. A place where he can sit with Brandi until such time when he joins her, and Letha, and Tim, and Reed, and Mary Beth.  

Contributions can be made to: paypal.me/brandismemorial

Checks or money orders should be made out to “Brandi Memorial” and sent to:

Northeast Community Credit Union 980 Jason Witten Way Elizabethton, TN  37643

Main office phone: 423-547-1200 Brandy Arnett, New Accounts Representative

Read more of the Celtic Lassie’s story as told by Otteray Scribe himself below the fold. Like all of Otteray Scribe and Letha’s children, she was an extraordinary woman and packed a lot into her all-to-brief life.

Her name was Brandi Nicole Stanley.  Please remember her. THEY SAID

When she was seven months old, they said she had no chance of surviving the cancer.

She survived two major surgeries, spending five months isolated in a stainless steel crib with no family to visit her.

November 1989, University of Mississippi Children’s Cancer Clinic.

When she was 13 months old and placed in foster care, they said she had between five and eighteen months to live. 

She survived 16 courses of chemotherapy and an episode of Sepsis.

Two days before surgery, fifteen months old, February 1990. She was given a 50% chance of surviving the surgery.

When she was six years old, they gave her psychological tests. They said she was mentally slow and would never learn to read beyond the third grade level.

She graduated high school with honors, attended college on a scholarship, and got her degree.  Still on a scholarship, she went back to college for certification as an EMT/Paramedic.

High School graduation, 2007

When she was six years old, they said she would not be able to write beyond third grade level.

She began touch typing in the third grade.  By the time she was in middle school, she typed more than 40 words per minute. She wrote her autobiography for Language Arts class. By her first year in college, her typing speed was well over 100 WPM.

Autobiography which she typed for her Seventh Grade Language Arts class, age 13.

They said she would have motor skill handicaps due to brain damage caused by the chemotherapy.

She played the bagpipes and bodhran (Irish) drums.  

Brandi with her Gibson bagpipes.

She shot a rifle and pistol at the Expert level.

On the Sheriff’s Department Range with her Browning semi-automatic pistol.

She was a student pilot who liked aerobatics.

In a 450 horsepower 1942 Stearman PT-17 biplane, ready to take off.

She was an expert horsewoman. She taught herself to tie her own shoes at age three.

Brandi riding one of her favorite horses.

They told her many things she would not be able to do.

Hand feeding a caribou in Alaska. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. But YOU be the one to tell her she can’t feed an animal.

She said, “Don’t tell me I can’t do something, because I will prove you wrong.”

When she was 26 years old, her cancer came back.

She said, “I won’t go without a fight.”  She didn’t.

She fought until her last breath.

Literally.

The Highland spirit does not die with the body of a Scottish Lassie.  She lives on in legend and song.

x YouTube Video

Brandi Nicole Stanley, the Celtic Lassie, would have been 29 years old today.

Let her not be forgotten, but be folded into the women of legend, fitting for a daughter of Boadicea.

Badge of Clan Skene, one of the most ancient of all Highland Clans. The Lassie’s badge worn on her sash.